Experimenting with the auction

Guessing what the auction price of the platinum Big Pilot Saint Exupéry would be, led me to perform a small experiment, to make it a bit more interesting. Of course I hoped it would help me to guess right and win the contest. I did not, but I came close.

I looked at the results of the auctions of 2007 and 2008, and how people predicted. The results were quite interesting:
- in 2007 64% of the people guessed too high, 36% too low.
- in 2008 91% of the people guessed too high, 9% too low.
Well, in 2008 we were in an economical crisis, would that explain the extraordinary figures?

I waited until almost the end, and decided that 20% would guess too low. In this way, my guess came at CHF 65.000. In reality the price was CHF 62.500: 87% of the people guessed too high, 13% too low.

We obviously wanted the price to be as high as possible, quite laudable, but to try and win must make you pessimistic.

Congratulations to the winner, who guessed exactly right!

Kind regards,
Paul, wearing yellow gold Portuguese Perpetual Calendar

Great work Paul. Very interesting analysis...

I knew that people tend to overestimate so I stayed low and was not too far off. But I'll use your method next year. You should win a prize just because your methodology was so well thought out.

Oh well...

The price was right, it was mentioned at the Sotheby's site. It actually said CHF 6.250 for about half an hour before it was corrected. The only thing wrong is that it does not represent the asked hammer price, but what the buyer really paid for the watch.

When you think about it, the amount is really low then, both in absolute figures and in guesses by us. Did only one person bid on it, the minimum amount, and got it? Is the buyer a forum member?

Did Sotheby's bring the extra amount when compared to an auction on our IWC site? When I look at the prices paid on the other auctions, CHF 57.500 in 2007 and CHF 46.700 in 2008, you might think Sotheby's wasn't worth it.

Kind regards,
Paul, wearing yellow gold Portuguese Perpetual Calendar

Paul, I appreciate it. Of course there is always..

...something to say about statistics etc., but I think it was a fun analysis and let's see what comes out of the real auction!

Groet,

Bob
wearing an extremely light titanium GST Perptual, lol

Statistics, and fun

It was fun to think about it, and to try and find a simple way that would make sence. While it is quite possible that with all the data needed just around the corner a more sophisticated and reliable way of working could be chosen, I wonder if so much better a result could be achieved based only on the data available on this forum. The fun part was to try and make a choice about the percentage of people that would guess too low, instead of merely thinking about the amount itself. Were the people aware of their guessing too high the previous times? Were they taking the economic situation of that moment into account? Would the last developments about "Greece and the (our) Euro" matter? To the buyer this last one did maybe, long after most people entered their guess. I finish as I started: it was fun.

Kind regards,
Paul, wearing steel VC Portuguese